Every night about this time I like to go to Hypem.com and check it out so I know what the cool kids are listening to. The Hype Machine gathers up allllll the music blog posts in the land, and puts them all in front of you to listen to so you can give everything a try. And I do mean EVERYTHING. For example: tonight I looked and saw that they had posted a song by Mulatu Astatke, one of my favorite Ethiopian jazz musicians, but instead of being a regular Mulatu song (check out one of my favorites, Yekatit, above) it was a collaboration with the Heliocentrics, a British jazz band. It’s a pretty sick pairing, the Heliocentrics pumping up the languid Astatke with a tight drum beat and a little tweaking, and it’s another reason why you should be checking Hypem.com on the daily as well. Just be warned- it becomes compulsive.
